


Our Fillory

by Estel, scifichicx



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: College, Fillory, Friendship, Gen, Moving, Teenagers, pillow fort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 07:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16081022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estel/pseuds/Estel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifichicx/pseuds/scifichicx
Summary: While packing to go to college at Columbia University, Quentin becomes overwhelmed and takes refuge in a Fillorian pillow fortress. Julia arrives with endless excitement for their real adventure ahead.





	Our Fillory

The dining table, a regular site of many a feat in pillow architecture, was swimming in boxes. Packing for college was encroaching on every inch of the dining room, the designated holding area before packing his dad's truck to haul it all up to Columbia.

It was all becoming too real, so the obvious solution was to take the pile of bedding and pillows that was going to eventually get shoved into trash bags and added to the Hen’s Teeth sized mountain range of boxes and barricaded himself inside the world of Fillory.

The ground had a soft comforter spread across it. He’d had it for a couple of years now. It was the first one he and his dad had picked up when he upgraded to more “mature” sheets than his cartoon sheets of his youth. The walls, for structural reasons, were held up at each end of the long table by sofa cushions stolen from the nearby living room. Over them, a grey, twin XL sheet (which was recently purchased for the move) created an overcast Fillorian sky and spilled down to the floor. It was anchored by two heavy stacks of books and a box labeled “bathroom stuff” on the top of the table. The far wall, hanging off the opposite side of the table was made up of a large green Celtic knot tapestry acquired from an adventure to a renaissance faire sophomore year with Julia. They spent the majority of the day as Jane and Martin Chatwin exploring a rural village. It was one of the best days of his life.

Surrounding the barrier was four uncovered bed pillows and two well-loved sofa pillows, also pilfered from the living room. Three clip lights lined the bottom edge of the table, plugged into a power strip that remained on Earth (as opposed to inside of the Fillory bubble) on top of the table.

For the first time in the week of packing, Quentin felt calm, thumbing through a well-loved copy of _The Girl Who Told Time_ and reclining inside of his soft fortress.

Julia said hello to Mr. Coldwater as she casually walked up the porch steps and into the house. He was trying to keep a brave face, but she knew that he was having a hard time letting his baby bird fly. The Coldwater living room was as familiar to Julia as her own now. She was going to miss being there all the time. Julia glanced up the stairs, towards Quentin's room, but she was pretty sure Q's whole life was in boxes by now so he was-

Oh, she knew exactly where he was. When she got a good look at the dining nook she could see the epic fort nestled into the curve of the moving boxes. She tucked her hair behind her ears and got down on her hands and knees to peer into the "door."

"Martin," She huffed, in a fairly bad English accent. "I knew I'd find you here. Hiding away."

"Oh," Quentin sputtered as he shut the book over his finger, holding his place somewhere near Jane's iconic confrontation with the Watcherwoman near the climax of the book. He stammered a bit as he righted himself.

"You know Kings don't hide, Jane," he teased in an equally bad accent. "We-uh- contemplate alone."

He finally locked eyes with Julia when he sat up all the way as she peered through the narrow end legs of the table where he had left an opening.

"You certainly can't spend all of your days contemplating." She cocked her head in a well-meaning, but condescending way and added, "How on Earth will you get anything done?" She crawled in deeper, her necklaces swinging about, and sat cross-legged in front of Quentin. She smiled at him; hiding behind his book, like it could push back time and keep him here in Fillory. It was time for new adventures and Julia could practically taste the fun and freedom of college beckoning.

"I actually-" he paused having lost his trademark Martin accent for a moment. He swallowed and kept going. "I could. The best of rulers have deep thoughts. They know things people don't."

She watched as he awkwardly set down the book, took a deep sigh, then laid on his back again, staring up at their under-table graffiti Map of Fillory.

As if drawn all the way down from his toes, he let out a deep, heavy sigh. In two days, they would be in New York. They'd have to be in charge of their own meals and hope that all the years of advanced placement classes and an absurd amount of time spent studying would all add up to something. Who knows, maybe there he'd find something resembling a reason he was alive other than to read Fillory and make other people feel better about themselves by being the lamest, nerdiest kid in the room at any point at time. "What the hell are we doing, Jules?" he finally said in his regular voice.

As soon as he laid back down, Julia dropped the last of the Jane body language and squirmed down next to him. She hooked her arm through his and was silently buzzing with excitement. "We're starting the rest of our lives!" She told him. "It's our Fillory, you know? Our adventure." She felt suffocated in her life, but in that normal young adult/late teenager way. She wanted to live and relax and experience everything. More than that, she couldn't wait to tackle this next part of living with her best friend. Yeah, her mom was being a total bitch about premarital blah, blah, blah, but what she should have worried about was Jules' amazing ability to get alcohol and the love of junk food that she and Quentin shared.

From her perspective, the future was bright.

All of the upsides, of which he had been lectured on many times by Jules up to this point, seemed thin like ice he would surely fall through to discover that he was, in fact, drowning. "It's not Fillory, its New York," he muttered sullenly. He was unenthusiastic about the prospect of dorm life where he would be likely sharing a room with another person he'd never met. He knew he'd have to fight three times as hard to feel half as normal as everyone else around him.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. The anxiety attached to this move was making him feel like he was being shocked in the arms that his chest was never going to relax. Desperate for grounding, his arm unhooked from hers and his hand crept across the soft comforter floor towards hers.

She had known him long enough to know what a "panic-adjacent-Quentin" felt like. Her hand slipped down to catch his and intertwine their fingers. She remembered being on a blanket under the stars, hands clasped like this, talking about Fillory so many times. Fillory might be a another world but New York was fucking big and full of potential. Where Q saw an inevitable misery, Jules saw freedom and the start of real life. She squeezed his hand a little, like maybe she could pull him back from the sad place.

"It's not here. That's a good start."

"That is true." His hand squeezed hers back. They were about to embark on a real adventure. He'd spent so much time working towards wanting things other than the adventures that he went on when no one was watching into the Flying Forest or through the Great Bramble. This was tangible. In two days, his new quest was headed to Columbia University in pursuit of a bachelor's degree in... something. With Julia right there.

This house was filled with all sorts of strange memories. Good and bad. He nearly died upstairs in the room that he slept in every night. His mom slammed the front door and the next day told him that she wouldn't be living with them anymore. But it was also where he and Julia found Fillory every day. It was where he'd finally learned how to palm a card. It was where he and his dad had lame movie nights complete with popcorn. New Jersey wasn't perfect, but it was all he'd ever known.

"Plus, if Columbia is actually filled with monsters, we can always retreat," he said only half joking.

"Or-" Julia let go of his hand so she could roll onto her side. She propped her head on her hand and grinned, "We fight them." She gave him a gently poke in the side. "We show them who is boss."

A change of scenery should be good for Q. At least that's what Jules hoped. She knew how much he'd struggled through life so far and part of her was scared that he would suddenly be gone. All she could do was offer him what seemed like joy and try to help him feel safe and grounded. She would kick the ass of those theoretical monsters; it was time to thrive.

He glanced sidelong at her. "So you're saying I should pack my broadsword?" A small smirk crept into his sullen expression. "Go full Thomas Ian Nicholas in Camelot?"

His eyes traced over the mountain ranges and oceans drawn beneath the table. Who knew if he'd ever see them again. Every day, Manhattan seemed further and further away. There were no clocks or cabinets that would lead him back here. Just trains and buses filled with screaming babies, pickpockets, and homeless people.

"I'm going full Sparta; kick them into the pit." She shrugged casually, with a mischievous smile. She looked at his eyes and followed them to the underside of the table. "Books transport, Q. You're not leaving Fillory here."

It was so easy to touch him and be near him. She grabbed his hand and held it like some brotherly knight handshake. "And come on, we are going to have so much fun. We're going to parties and taking amazing classes, and we can pick like a ton of what we want to study, there's food everywhere, everything is cool old architecture; it's nerd-topia."

Her dazzling smile and sparkling eyes were very genuine.

His hand tightened around hers and he turned over to face her, letting his head drop at an awkward angle to the floor. "There is that, uh, huge six-story bookstore we saw that one time," he managed to force the words out as he dug for reasons to be excited with her. "And -uh- oh! The uh- the really really old magic store that’s there. Tannen's."

His eyes got wider as the excitement genuinely hit him. This was it. This was their next big adventure. Quentin and Julia's _Flying Forest_.

She felt him connect and her smile widened. Her eyes were full of affection. "See! Yeah. I'd love to go to dusty old magic shops with you." She heard Mr. Coldwater come back in and she clasped her other hand over theirs, giving him a quick "hand hug."

"Come on, we should help."

Quentin nodded immediately, causing his ear-length hair that had already been precariously bunched by his temple to fall in his face. "Otherwise he's going to actually throw out his back."


End file.
